About

The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 was a 3-year Leverhulme Trust-funded research project based in the Department of History at the University of Warwick (2011-2012) and University College London (2012-2014). The project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and ended in August 2014. Over three years the core project team and over 300 project associates worked together to examine the British country house in an imperial and global context.

Professor Finn will continue to blog (and tweet) about developments connected with the project and themes related to colonial material cultures. Have questions? Contact:
m.finn@ucl.ac.uk

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The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 Mid-Project Conference, will take place on 31 May and 1 June 2013.

The conference is now fully booked, but places are available for the Keynote Lecture given by Giorgio Riello, which will take place in Cruciform Building room B404-LT2 at University College London at 5.30pm on Friday 31st May. The lecture is free of charge and places are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Friday 31 May

Day Session – British Library Conference Centre

11.35 Roundtable Session – Making Sense of the Current Project Case Studies

Eight Project Associates (from a variety of backgrounds) will give short presentations about the case studies they have written (or are writing) for the project. Sue Stronge (Senior Curator, Asian Department, V&A and EICAH Advisory Board Member) will then chair a discussion examining the central themes that have emerged out of the case studies.

13.00 Lunch

14.00 Reading Documents Session

Margaret Makepeace (Lead Curator, East India Company Records, British Library and EICAH Advisory Board Member) and her colleagues will lead conference delegates in a hands-on session that explores a variety of documents in the British Library collection and how they have (and might in the future) forward research.

15.00 Coffee Break

15.30 The Material Worlds of the East India Company

This panel of papers from John McAleer (Lecturer, University of Southampton), Stacey Pierson (Senior Lecturer in Chinese Ceramics, School of Oriental and African Studies) and Ellen Filor (PhD Student on The East India Company at Home) will explore the objects and buildings related to the trade of the East India Companies and will question the ways in which these ‘things’ were incorporated into and shaped the material worlds of Britain and beyond. (This session will end at 17.00)

Friday 31 May

Evening Session – Cruciform Building, Room B404-LT2, University College London

Saturday 1 June

Morning Session – Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, University College London

In this session members of the project team will speak with people from outside the University with whom they have collaborated as part of The East India Company at Home project. Senior Research Fellow Helen Clifford will be joined by Emile de Bruijn (National Trust) to discuss their project concerned with Chinese wallpaper, while Research Fellow Kate Smith and Claire Reed (Osterley Park and House, National Trust) will discuss the display they are involved in at Osterley Park.

11.00 Coffee Break

11.30 How does collaboration work? A discussion concerned with methodology

Viccy Coltman (Head of Art History, University of Edinburgh and EICAH Advisory Board Member) will bring together Cliff Pereira (Public Engagement Consultant and Independent Scholar), Margaret Makepeace (Lead Curator, East India Company Records, British Library), Julie Day (Author of ‘countryhousereader’ – http://countryhousereader.wordpress.com/) and Keith Sweetmore (Archives Development Manager, North Yorkshire County Record Office and EICAH Advisory Board Member) to discuss how collaborative projects that venture into the space between academic and public history work. The panel will discuss the challenges and opportunities that such an approach creates and asks how researchers might improve such approaches going forwards.